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Kazkah
=Physical Description= Kazkah cuts an imposing figure, orcish features nonwithstanding. For all of her Shaman learnings, she's less a woman of contemplation and more one of immediate action, and it's mirrored in her movements. Muscle is well defined and heavy beneath her green skin, giving her a compact, sturdy look. Traditionally, her head is shaved save for one long rusty brown topknot at the crown of her skull, although events in Northrend have caused her to shear this off and allow her hair to grow out. It's now a bristly mop of new growth, usually slicked back as flat against her skull as she can force it. Her arms and hands are often exposed in whatever casual-about-town garb she's wearing, and they're smattered with scars and burns, especially her hands. The evidence of much tinkering and toil at a forge is apparent, and has likely contributed to her impressively muscled arms. (One doesn't exactly stay lithe swinging a hammer all day!) Her most notable scar however, is free for all to see. It's a jagged trench of a thing, from mid-forehead to jawline, a sizable gash carved from her left cheek. It's an old wound, darkened with age, and if she's ever seen without her eyepatch, the wrinkled ruin of her stitched together eyelid is enough to make most people at least wince. Aside from over-compensating from this nearly life-long blindspot, the injury has cost Kazkah a severe amount of nerve function, rendering nearly that entire side of her face numb. As a result, there are times when her words are slurred, or when she talks very obviously from the other side of her mouth. While she's not one to parade around at complete ease, Kazkah doesn't prefer to traipse around in full armor, and will often forgo it in a large city. Bright ostentatious colors and cuts of clothing aren't her style. She's far more casual and "tomboyish", preferring loose linen trousers in blacks or browns, and comfortably-cut shirts that keep her arms and hands free for work. Her boots are heavy thumping things, thick-soled and steel-toed. Her trousers are tucked into them only when she's working. Her only jewelry is a silver ring that passes through the septum of her nose (removed in cold weather due to er... nasal fluid buildup) and a pair of onyx earrings. They seem to be fashioned from a solid disc of the stuff, with an indentation carved out to make room for her earlobe and the post. =Personality= Brusque, to say the least, Kazkah doesn't "beat around the bush". Announcing exactly what's on her mind the minute it materializes in her mind (and acting on it), this has gotten her into trouble on more than several occasions. Her manner of speech is earthy and very pungent, peppered with slang and the occassional word of Common, which she speaks due to time spent in an internment camp as a young child. She's also one to cut a comical accent or mocking tone when necessary, and her time spent among the various trolls of her guild has resulted in a passable, if horribly stereotyped, trollish accent and cadence. For all her coarseness, she's a fast friend if you can swallow her prickly nature and temper flare-ups. Staunchly loyal to her own (somewhat skewed) code of honor and morality, she'll defend what she believes is right (or at least fly off the handle and wind up "defending" what is right) even if the consequences are severe. Kazkah's not dumb, however, and while she's somewhat of a daredevil, won't take unnecessary risks with her life or her other lives she's responsible for. She also tends to ramble on, sometimes nonsensically, especially concerning subjects and events that confuse or bewilder her, or on anything even faintly related to things mechanical or explosive. Her two main vices are smoking and drinking, which she does to great excess when given the option. Her preferred form of each are cigars (rumored to be of the finest Goblin make for the Trade Princes, smuggled out of Undermine ... a rumor probably started by and maintained by Kazkah), and a throat-searing concoction of homemade hooch she claims she learned from a waterlogged recipe out of a rusted lockbox on the end of a fishing line. =Maneater, You Are Called= Of Bleeding Hollow Clan decent, Kazkah was orphaned on the Azeroth side of the Portal, as Kilrogg Deadeye and Grom Hellscream led their respective clans out of the shattering Draenor for one last push against Stormwind. Her parents were killed in the incursion, and the yearling Kazkah was bundled onto a cart and filed into an internment camp. Unexposed to demonic blood like many of the adults (and too young to be aged by the warlocks), Kazkah didn't quite understand why the elders were growing more and more lethargic and sad. The names Gul'dan and Mannoroth were like things out of a fairy story, as was the true predicament of the orcish nation, to a child of roughly 4. Her thirst for trouble and to explore the strange world outside the camp's walls led to an attempted escape. It was a harmless thing, not one born of a need for freedom or revenge, just unbidden childish curiosity. Hardly stealthy or cautious about it, she was easily caught trying to scale the walls. Her captors, of course, having experienced the war firsthand, were less amused by the burly child's antics. Perhaps a bit over-zealous in their capture, it frightened Kazkah into a frenzy. Her struggle ended in a display of fear-driven rage, managing to bite off and swallow a guard's ear. It ended with a savage beating by the pained human. It ended, both fortunately and unfortunately for her, with the loss of her eye, the result of taking a kick delivered by a plated boot to the face. Dumped bleeding and weeping into the middle of the camp, Kazkah was tended to by an aging greatmother. One of her earliest and most heart-wrenching memories was the old orc crying bitterly as she tended to the sniveling child, sewing the gash and empty eyelid shut. Once the pain had subsided and her body had mended, Kazkah was presented to one of the surviving elders of the Bleeding Hollow. Considering the loss of her eye to be of special import to their clan and leader, the elder performed a crude, hasty ceremony to mark her adulthood. Perhaps to placate their need for some return to the old ways and to give the broken child courage of heart, the adults of the clan felt that her attempted escape and self-defense stood in for the traditional Om'riggor ceremony. It was there that she was given her surname, Maneater. After all was said and done, Kazkah was more aware of what her people were facing, and through observation and shared stories, learned of how they had entered this predicament. Of course, like all orcs thrust into the camps leaderless and without aim, her world changed once more with the arrival of Thrall, and the freedom of the orcish people. The Flight to Kalimdor By the time the orc who would become Warchief freed his people, Kazkah was nearing her second decade. It was here that she learned Common, picked up in snatches and bits by the human guards. It was also where she developed her affinity for machines, building haphazard devices of wood and metal pried from the cabins to ease her boredom. Soon migrating with the freed clans to safety (and then onto ships), Kazkah became quite enamored of the young Warchief. Here was an orc untouched but affected by the demonic pact, a quiet, peaceable gentleorc who put the safety and security of his people far before his own needs. His ban on the wanton killing of humans struck a chord with her, developing her belief that killing only leads to more killing, and that an orc was not defined by the notches on his axe, but by the nobility of his heart. Immediately she enlisted as a Grunt, serving her time not only in the Battle of Mount Hyjal but in the construction of Orgrimmar. She put in considerable time at the Orphanage. Not only did she feel it was her duty to look after those orphaned by the wars and the crossing, but she spent many months there, an overgrown orphan with no place to call her own. It was there that she was adopted by a set of troublemaking orc twins named Onk and Bonk, as precocious as she had been as a child and with a keen eye for pranks and the invention of the Kodo Dung Stink Bomb. It was when she was surveyed by a visiting Farseer that her own inner potential was realized - that she had the inborn ability to become a Shaman. Drek'Thar, a Family Reunited and the Return to Draenor Bundled off to the Valley of Trials, she was educated in the ancient ways. This proved somewhat difficult, however, as the stubborn Kazkah was very much set in her own near-Warrior ways, preferring to settle matters of violence with axe and fist rather than deliberations with Spirits and the elements. She'll admit with a charming grin that she dozed through many of these early lessons, resulting in a rather poor aptitude with all things "magical". However, the prospect of being sent through the newly-reopened Dark Portal unnerved her, both as an orc and as a budding Shaman. What awaited her on the other side? The idea of fighting twisted Fel Orcs and the Legion unsettled her, and the possibility of her neglected spiritual side being overwhelmed by the pained and angered elemental spirits of Draenor made her hesitate. For that reason she felt the need to at least meet with and seek some sort of reassurance from a great Shaman. Making the pilgrimage to Alterac Valley, Kazkah spent a few months in that snowy, blood-soaked valley, meeting with the Frostwolf General. His own courage helped to seal her resolve, his shared stories of demonic taint and his return to the Shamanistic ways helping to inspire her. An unlooked-for support came when she least expected it. She had thrown her lot in with a group of like-minded Horde, calling themselves The Bloodwolves. In conversing with their leader, a Warrior named Grimgash Blackmane, Kazkah found a few unnerving connections. Once more seeking out the wisdom of Bleeding Hollow elders and their memories, the pair discovered something amazing: they were brother and sister. Grimgash had been her older brother, aged by the warlocks and sent with the main fighting force against the humans. After the orcs' defeat and imprisonment, Grimgash had escaped, and spent many years terrorizing the camps. It was there that he had earned his surname, as the last thing the humans saw (or the only thing a survivor remembered) before being cut down was a wild shock of black hair. Now feeling a sense of belonging and security that she had never experienced, Grimgash supported her when he could as she cut her teeth in the alien red landscape of Hellfire Penninsula. A far older and wiser Shaman, a member of the Bloodwolves, helped to soothe her spirit and steel her against the raging elementals. The lessons learned there, and the influence of Warchief Thrall's peacful nature led to an incursion of an entirely different sort when she found herself face-to-face with a draenei of the Alliance, trapped together on one side by gouts of fire and on the other by patrolling demons. The pair fought for their freedom together rather than with one another. Neither thought much of the encounter, going their separate ways. Despite having nothing to do with the slaughter of the draenei people by the demon-posessed orcs, Kazkah still felt that there was a matter of restitution, Often describing the feeling as that of a heart-twisting ache and an urge to weep whenever she so much as looked at a draenei, Kazkah traveled to Shattrath, hoping to repay in her own way the bloodshed by allying with the Aldor. Taking a quiet break from the bustle of Shattrath by going into the mountains that ringed the city, Kazkah once more found herself face-to-face with the same draenei she'd met in Hellfire Penninsula. Once more the two acted civilly rather than resort to immediate violence. Kazkah's knowledge of Common and the draenei's crude understanding of Orcish made communicating easy, if comical at times. She was surprised to find that he, named Alomaar, was a Shaman. Yet instead of being viewed with reverence and joy, draenei viewed Shamanisim as near-heresy and an orc-tainted abomination. His age also unnerved her, given that he was thousands of years old and likely to age thousands more, if he was lucky. The pair returned to that location often to talk away from the business of war, and it grew for a time into secretive romantic meetings. Despite any true feelings held for Alomaar, Kazkah will be quick to say that it grew into a love affair out of lonliness and the secret aching guilt she harbored for the treatment of the draenei. As the war drew to a close with the reignition of the Sunwell, the pair went their separate ways, fully realizing that nothing fruitful could come of any relationship they might have. The last she'd heard from Alomaar was that he was returning to the Plaguelands to help the Argent Crusade push back the Scourge. Trolling The war against the Legion ended on a much more somber note than she was expecting. The Bloodwolves disbanded with Grimgash going into self-appointed exile. There had been rumors of an assassination attempt against Thrall, and the Bloodwolves and Grimgash took it as their personal responsibilty to unviel the traitor and the assassin. The attempt never saw the light of day, but the plot was never fully uncovered. Taking it as a personal failure to protect the Warchief, Grimgash went into exile, seemingly vanishing into thin air. Despondent at the loss of her only family, Kazkah spent weeks drowning her sorrows and blowing off steam in a favorite (if improper) game - that of annoying Blood Elves. Several of them had made their opinion of orcs (especially those in Silvermoon) known, and while their insults were usually met with a roll of the eye and a snort, there were times when Kazkah would deliberately stir up a ruckus by responding, baiting the elves into a frenzy of stuttering and hurled demonic magic. This was of course what she was hoping for - as Kazkah had an innate and very strong dislike of warlocks and demons. It would of course result in a fist fight, much to her delight. It was starting one of those fights that she struck up a conversation with a roguish Troll who was doing much the same thing - working the elves into an absolute lather with his casual insults and blatant disregard for their superiority. The two of them seemed to have a knack for starting trouble, and it worked to double effect when they were in the same room together. The troll was one Rin'zuku, a Headhunter for the Darkspear, and interim leader of the Nightsong Militia. The pair were thick as thieves, and Kazkah found she fit in right at home with madcap crew of warriors of the Horde that was the Militia. (It of course didn't hurt that she and Rin'zuku's friendship had grown far more ... physical.) She's been with the Militia (and Rin'zuku) ever since. A Mean Right Hook Having miraculously escaped the Lich King's Plagued grain (infected in Booty Bay and trapped as her spectral ghost wolf form), she and the Militia struck out for Northrend. It was for the most part blissfully uneventful - as far as a war against the Scourge went, anyway. However, her rash actions and temper nearly cost her freedom. She had put in application to join the Sky Reavers, if only to get a close-up experience with the gunnery ship Orgrim's Hammer. Her term there didn't last long, however. When she and the crew discovered the Horde's sneak attack on Alliance engaged with the Scourge near Mord'rethar, the overjoyed reaction of Sky Reaver Blackscar ignited her rage. Expecting the act of cowardice and cruelty to be met with bitter anger, his laughter and glee at the wholesale slaughter of Alliance caught between the Scourge and the Horde caused her to erupt in a fury. She swung at the Sky Reaver, catching him off-guard and nearly breaking his jaw. This, of course, earned her a beating and a visit to the brig. She languished there for many weeks, and any sort of kindness she experienced was at the hands of Koltira Deathweaver. While he was hardly sympathetic to her plight, he too felt that the Horde was wasting its time in pointless skirmishes with the Alliance, when the Lich King was the true threat. This helped her change her distrust of Deathknights somewhat, as he mantained a tenuous (but strange) grip on hope, even when all had abandoned him. She was deathly afraid that under Garrosh Hellscream's command, the orcs stationed at Northrend would return to the ways of the Old Horde, leading to nothing but brutal slaughter and the loss of any peace and prosperity the Horde had achieved. Plagued by these nightmares, she was visited finally by the Sky Reaver and his Lieutenants to mete out her sentence. It was disguised as punishment for her insurrection and striking of her commanding officer, but the Sky Reaver made it clear that it was really just good old fashioned harsh orc revenge. As such, she was strung up from the ceiling and given 40 lashes. Feeling that his honor at being cold-clocked was restored, the Sky Reaver departed in smug silence. What would have befallen her next (whether she would be released or treated to "proper" military justice) is unknown, as later that night, she had an unexpected visitor. She'd arrived on the ship by way of her Netherdrake, Jorus. When he returned riderless and she had passed on no further communications, the Militia and Rin'zuku had grown suspicious, worrying that something had gone wrong. Not wanting to wait on official inquiries or anything involving paperwork, Rin'zuku took it on himself to sneak aboard and rescue her. By that time her hair had grown out into a shaggy mess, and wracked with grief and worry at the possible future of the Horde, Kazkah cut off her topknot, leaving it in the snows of Icecrown Glacier. She's been in hiding ever since, not knowing just how far the Sky Reaver's anger will extend. Considering the last place one would ever look for an orc was Silvermoon City, Kazkah took up residence there. However, orcs do tend to stick out. Using a combination of her own mechanical ingenuity and a little arcane help from the mages in the Militia, Kazkah whipped up a device worn on her wrist that gives her the outward appearance of an average blood elf female. Until she feels she's safe from retribution, she currently runs a small salvage and repair shop out of the Bazaar under the name Cass Soltheris. =Artwork= File:Zukukaz.jpg|Kazkah and Zuku. File:Childrensweek.jpg|Kazkah spends time at the Orphanage. File:Med.jpg|Trying to be a deep thinker. File:Kazkah.jpg|The earliest concept of Kazkah, including the stylized eyepatch. Contents are drawn by peeping-doom@deviantart (Kazkah) unless otherwise noted. =Random OOC Trivia= *Kazkah's name is inspired by that of Casca, the only female soldier in the manga Berserk. It's pure coincidence that the "orcish" iteration of the name is actually the Trollish "Kaz'kah", meaning "Death Totem". It fits, somehow. *Her manner of speaking (and many of her favorite quotes and swears) are heavily influenced by the show Firefly. *Kazkah and Grimgash were originally going to be in-character lovers, rather than brother and sister. Aaaawkwaaaaaaaard. *Alomaar, the draenei Shaman, was played by an IRL friend during he and Kazkah's relationship, and the relationship ended not because of IC reasons, but because the player quit the game. /sadmoo *From a lore and semi-game mechanic standpoint, Kazkah is a Spirit Champion, a prestige class from the tabletop Warcraft game. *Of all of the elements, Kazkah's closest spiritual tie is with that of Earth. Until visiting with Drek'Thar, she was unable to even contact the Spirit of Fire who avoided her due to her dangerous temper. *Kazkah's knack for healing is ... lackluster at best. She claims that someone she attempted to heal sprouted an extra head in a very unfortunate location. External Links Thundercaller - Short bits of Kazkah-related fanfiction, and her soundtrack. Category: Characters Category: Horde Category:Nightsong Militia Category:Orc Category:Shaman